Bernard Schoenburg: Manar would alter rules for signatures

Friday

You might not expect the former chief of staff to a legislative leader to support an easier route for independent and third-party candidates to get on the ballot. But that’s what ANDY MANAR is doing.

You might not expect the former chief of staff to a legislative leader to support an easier route for independent and third-party candidates to get on the ballot. But that’s what ANDY MANAR is doing.

Manar, former mayor of Bunker Hill, current Macoupin County Board chairman and former chief of staff to Senate President JOHN CULLERTON, D-Chicago, said last week that, if elected, he’ll push to “level the playing field” so that all candidates would have the same signature requirement to get on the ballot.

Manar left his Senate job to campaign as the Democratic candidate for the Senate from the new 48th District. As a major-party candidate, he had to turn in 1,000 valid signatures. But independents and third-party candidates, whose filing period just ended Monday, had to have 3,000 each.

“That took us several months … and that takes an organization,” Manar said of the 1,000 he collected. “The threshold being three times higher for independents and third parties, to me, stacks the deck against those candidates and most likely dissuades people that have good ideas to present from running for office.”

One who was not dissuaded this time around was 63-year-old MIKE OBERLINE of Virden. He filed last week as a Constitution Party candidate in the 48th District, turning in nearly 3,500 signatures. Oberline said he’s a first-time candidate who’s been “a registered Democrat all my life.”

“I’m so fed up with what our so-called professional politicians have done to this state,” he said, that he was willing to give it a try when urged to make the Constitution Party run. He said he thinks the politicians in charge are seeking to balance the budget “on the backs of the poor, the elderly and the handicapped.”

Oberline has held a variety of security jobs and retired from his last one at an independent living facility in Springfield.

The Republican candidate is Decatur Mayor MIKE McELROY. He didn’t express a strong opinion about the signature threshold for candidates other than Democrats and Republicans.
“People have to follow the rules, and 3,000 is what the rules are now,” McElroy said. “That’s what needs to be followed. If there’s changes after that, then so be it.”

He also wondered why it took until now for Manar to present the idea, given that he had an influential Senate staff job in the past.

Manar said people in his county have discussed the idea with him recently, “and I think they’re right.”

Objections to nominating petitions of independent and third-party candidates are due Monday at the State Board of Elections. Signature checks are frequently done by both parties, and with some cause — some candidates file with a single petition signature.

BRENDAN O’SULLIVAN, political director of the Senate Democratic Victory Fund, said his group isn’t planning to object to Oberline’s petitions.

“Anybody who files with 3,500 signatures … deserves to be on the ballot,” Manar said.
I wondered if it would be politically advantageous for Manar to have a Constitution Party candidate on the ballot, because that sounds conservative, and conservative voters might vote for that alternative.

“Not in this district,” Manar said. “I don’t believe that at all.”

He also said his government experience suggests that when you have more people involved, be they voters or candidates, “chances are the outcome is going to be better.”

Various reformers or advocates for third-party or independent ballot access have failed over the years to level the field. Could Manar overcome the parties to get this done?

“I’m not weighing in on this because I think I would have more or less success on this issue,” he said. “I would be a voice toward that effort. … I think this is a reform that could bring meaningful differences to the legislature.”

Manar, by the way, said he has found another job since leaving his Senate staff post. He’s a senior adviser with Horinko Group, an environmental consulting firm that works with entities including the Great Rivers Research and Education Center in Alton. Manar said he works on budget, public relations and communications issues.

Schock vs. Quinn
U.S. Rep. AARON SCHOCK, R-Peoria, got to preside over the House when it passed a new highway bill Friday. Maybe that means that the next time he’s on national TV, he’ll at least know how long the legislation will be in force.

A Schock news release issued Friday, complete with a picture of Schock in the speaker’s position, was headlined “Schock ushers in passage of long-term highway bill.” The release said he was “claiming victory” after “months of urging Congress and President Obama to pass a long-term highway bill. …”

The new bill, which lasts through September 2014, is being lauded by members of both parties.

However, the congressman pulled the trigger a bit early when he appeared June 12 on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program. Schock made a joint appearance, from Chicago, with Gov. PAT QUINN.

More than once in that interview, Schock disputed the Democratic governor’s allegation that the GOP was blocking jobs action in Congress by saying the Republican-led House had passed a five-year highway bill.

In fact, the House had passed only a 90-day extension at that point.

“I misspoke,” Schock said later on a visit to Springfield. He said a five-year plan proposed in the House had spurred the Democratic-led Senate to get the ball rolling on its own multi-year plan.

Schock criticized Quinn later, saying on a WLS-AM show in Chicago the next day that “I’ve never heard so much gibberish and nonsense,” the Chicago Tribune later reported.

Schock said last week that his WLS comments were in reference to Quinn’s claim that “we have the auto bailout to thank for Ford’s expansion in Illinois. I would call that gibberish. I would call that nonsense.”

Quinn press secretary BROOKE ANDERSON said later that Quinn “specifically did not say bailout” during the MSNBC appearance. Quinn had lauded new Ford production in Chicago and a jump in Chrysler jobs in Illinois from 200 in 2009 to 4,500 this summer.

“The governor did not say anything that was factually incorrect,” Anderson said.

“It’s a fact that the entire auto supply industry would have gone down and struggled, including Ford, without the auto industry focus by the federal government,” she added.

In his own WLS appearance a day after Schock, the Trib reported, Quinn said the “gibberish and nonsense” Schock had heard was “uttered out of his own mouth … and I think we ought to get the record straight.”

Anderson said the governor hopes to have the help of Schock and other Republicans in Congress in working with state lawmakers to get a deal on state government pensions, which remains a key goal this summer.

“He’s focused on trying to put the state back on sound financial footing,” Anderson said of Quinn.

Bernard Schoenburg is political columnist for The State Journal-Register. He can be reached at 788-1540 or follow him via twitter.com/bschoenburg. His email address is
bernard.schoenburg@sj-r.com.

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